A variety of factors are associated with the likelihood of reporting guns at school; however, mixed empirical findings hinder our ability to inform policies to reduce school violence. Additionally, many of the established factors are difficult to change over time, and limited attention has been devoted to more malleable factors such as anonymous…

Although school violence statistics indicate that schools are safe places, anxiety over school shootings continues to influence school safety reform to the extent that security measures in American public schools include the arming of schoolteachers. Furthermore, not only have youths' perceptions of school security been relatively unexplored,…

Gun violence in schools has had a destructive ripple effect in many communities across the United States, invoking activism from both parents and the actual survivors of gun violence. By creating a new and comprehensive archival research database that analyzes 30 years of gun violence that has occurred on U.S. school properties, the current study…

The current study aims to examine and compare predictors of attitudinal support for campus carry and concealed carrying behaviors on a campus where faculty, staff, and students can legally carry a weapon. This explores the relationship between attitudes and behaviors as it relates to concealed weapons on campuses. Whereas attitudinal correlates…

In the United States, targeted school shootings have become a distinct genre of violence. In this essay, Bryan Warnick, Sang Hyun Kim, and Shannon Robinson examine the social meanings that exist in American society that might contribute to this phenomenon, focusing on the question: "Why are schools conceptualized as appropriate places to…

Social support and social relationships are essential for psychological and physical health. Social rejection, on the other hand, is associated with increased stress and negative long and short-term consequences for a person's well-being. The long-term consequences of ostracism include the development of internalizing and externalizing psychiatric…

A plethora of studies have appeared which argue that, prior to their attack, the perpetrators of school shootings had experienced intense conflicts and problematic relations (e.g. bullying) with peers and teachers, and were on the periphery of the schools' social life. This in turn resulted in the perpetrators' view of themselves as marginalized…